1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods of performing computer procedures in network environments, and in particular to a method and system for generating a remotely invokable computer procedure arbitrary server and client program language.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the past, computer programs were primarily implemented on large, complex computers known as mainframes. In the past decade, there has been a trend away from such systems and towards network-based computing systems.
Network-based computing systems can implement many distributed processing techniques. One of these distributed computing environment (DCE) techniques is a client/server computing technology known as the Open Software Foundation Remote Procedure Calls (OSF/RPC, or simply RPC). Remote procedure calling is a programming technique wherein a "client" implemented in a client computer invokes a procedure as if it were local, that is, inside the client's program, when the procedure actually exists in another program implemented in another computer in the network, such as the network server. The underlying OSF/RPC support hides the complications arising from this distributed processing, allowing the programmer to code the procedure as if it were local to the client computer.
One difficulty with current RPC technology is that it is not usable from a wide variety of languages. In fact, RPC is currently defined only for use with a programming language known as "C." This requires the programmer to have a functional capability programming in "C" even if the underlying code for the procedure is written in a completely different program, such as COBOL or PL1. What is needed is device that allows the use of RPC by arbitrary programming language environments. The present invention satisfies that need.